Selling your home can feel overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be complicated. Put in a little effort before you list your home, and you can save yourself hours of time and stress down the road.
How to get your house ready to sell? Before you list, connect with a real estate agent in your area. They can help you check all the boxes and sell your home quickly. The agent can also tell you the best time to line up your home sale with seasonal demand.
Now, let’s get your house ready to sell.
Here are the 9 simple steps to getting your home ready to sell:
- Complete a pre-sale inspection
Avoid surprises that might come up in a buyer’s inspection. Get ahead of inspection issues. Speed up your home sale by completing a pre-sale inspection. Get a professional inspector to examine your home before putting it on the market. That way, you can make pre-emptive fixes and protect against last-minute surprises. Avoid things that could hold up your sale.
Be sure to cover these common issues that come up during home inspections:
- Dirty air filters in HVAC systems
- Signs of pest infestations
- Plumbing clogs
- Cracked windows or broken screens
- Broken appliances
- Water stains on ceilings
- Leaky faucets
You can make some quick, inexpensive upgrades to get your house ready for listing. Focus on the areas with the highest impact and visibility. Give your property an edge over the competition without going over your budget.
- Set the perfect price for your home
Hire an agent to set up your pricing strategy.
Your home’s listing price is the difference between selling fast and watching it drag on for months. It sets the tone for a sale right away. If the price is too low, you may end up losing profit. Set it too high, and your home could end up sitting on the market untouched.
Your agent is the best way to set up a pricing strategy for your home that aligns with your goals. They can also provide you with a preliminary idea of your home’s value before getting it ready to sell. Here are a few things that can drag down your home’s value to watch out for:
- Damaged roofs
- Poor workmanship
- Noisy spaces
- Outdated rooms
- Deferred maintenance
- Tackle those neglected weekend maintenance projects
You probably have projects that have been sitting on your to-do list for a while. Things that you haven’t quite gotten around to. Complete these tasks as you get ready to sell. That’s because they will tell a broader story about your home to the buyer. Will an interested person spots even small repairs that need to be done? If they do, they often suspect there are other areas that need fixing up. And that may hurt the sale.
Take care of any repairs, big or small, before a home inspector or appraiser finds them. Things like a leaky kitchen faucet, squeaky door hinges or a broken refrigerator drawer. These could lead buyers to assume that the rest of the house hasn’t been well-maintained.
- Deep clean your home
If your house isn’t clean and attractive, it could turn off buyers. Or deflate your home’s final sale price. It is essential to give the entire house a thorough cleaning as you get it ready to sell. Tackle one room at a time to make it more manageable.
Pay attention to the hotspots that tend to get a lot of eyeballs during showings. That includes these critical areas:
- Carpets
- Windows
- Kitchens
- Bathrooms
- Doors and walls
- Baseboards
- Declutter and depersonalize your home for buyers
It’s important to remove clutter and put away personal items. You want prospective buyers to see the space, not your stuff.
Your plan should be to clean up and depersonalize spaces. Create a blank canvas, so your buyer can easily see themselves living in your home after the sale. Clutter makes it difficult for a buyer to visualize their own furniture and décor. Or how they might use the spaces.
Here are a few tips to help you organize and depersonalize your house before you sell:
- Consider renting a storage unit
- Remove expired food and wipe away messes in your fridge
- Tidy up your pantry and kitchen cabinets
- Clean and organize your closets
- Clear floor spaces
- Store less-used items in plastic totes
- Hang shoes on the door with shoe racks
- Use fabric storage cubes to hold scarves, hair tools, and other small items
- Hide messy cords
- Remove any traces of your pets
- Swap out old light fixtures and brighten spaces
Upgrading your light fixtures is a quick, affordable way to get your home ready to sell.
There are a few simple ways to improve lighting in your home:
- Remove dust from existing light fixtures
- Dust fixtures weekly with an extendable duster to prevent build-up. Have glass-encased fixtures? Remove the glass, dump out any debris and dead bugs, and soak the glass in a bucket or sink full of warm, soapy water.
- Check and replace your lightbulbs
- Make sure all of the bulbs in the house are working. Make sure that the bulbs match in each individual light fixture.
- Make sure the foyer entry light fixture is fresh and modern. This will set the tone for the rest of the house tour.
- Paint your home’s interior with fresh, neutral colours
It may not be necessary or cost-effective to paint every room of your house. A little strategic interior painting can drive up your home’s value. Touch up paint on interior walls where it’s needed.
Don’t have extra paint on hand? The paint you do have is past its prime? You can use a razor blade to shave off a 1” portion of paint. Take it to the paint store to have it matched with the appropriate colour. From there, use a Q-tip or a tiny brush to touch up small areas.
Want to paint entire rooms? Choose a neutral, timeless colour that will appeal to a wide range of buyers.
- Touch up or upgrade your home’s exterior
Your home’s exterior hits your potential buyer with a first impression that could make or break a sale. That’s why it’s so important to examine your home’s exterior before you list it for sale. Power washing your home’s exterior. Look out for any spots with chipped paint or siding damage. From there, you can add value by applying fresh paint to your home’s exterior.
Declutter your yard. Just like you did inside the house. Survey your lawn and driveway with a critical eye. Remove outdoor eyesores, such as kids’ toys, knick-knacks, trash cans, or other items. They could be distracting. Sweep off the porch and walkway. Clean out the gutters. Clean out the grill and freshen up the furniture cushions in your outdoor area.
- Tidy up landscaping and boost curb appeal
A final way to prepare your home for sale is to tidy up landscaping. Here are a few simple things you can make to improve your landscaping and boost your home’s curb appeal:
- Trim shrubs and trees
- Add outdoor accent lighting
- Plant some flowers and blooms
These 9 things can have a heavy impact on that first make-or-break impression. They can hook a buyer right away and set your home up for a fast sale.
Check with your real estate agent to review the list and prioritize what you need to do. Don’t have one yet? Pick me! Pick me! (shameless self-promotion moment)
Talk soon
Paul
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